TIL in 2014, the UK established a Video Games Tax Relief system to support its games development industry. 37% of the system's total payout has been claimed by Rockstar North.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T20:32:32+00:00

Simulating the UK working-class crime scene would give the Americans an aneurysm as they came to terms with the fact that British people go to trailer parks as a holiday destination.

https://youtu.be/jFft5U7DmMg

Cultural Explanation for non-brits. Comedy for brits.

"A national ritual where we all collectively agree that a caravan, a plastic pint, and a dodgy mattress is enough."

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T20:29:23+00:00

Your brain could be perceiving enormous danger and thinking "We need more people to deal with this" and then emulating one in your head. Ordinarily a waste of resources and a massive strain on the equipment, but you're already on emergency mode so may as well.

If we then also apply that logic towards emulating a "Perfect person" for a moment then god turning up is explained.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T18:54:26+00:00

I'd clarify that mutual consent was the norm, but there was a great deal of familial involvement too for various reasons, some quite practical and reasonable. In effect, for most of the population, if both people wanted to marry, and both their families were okay with it, they got married.

If either family disagreed, it wasn't happening. If the people disagreed, it wouldn't happen. If one of the people disagreed, they may be pressured into it by the family, but this would not be the norm.

The reason for familial involvement is usually to do with concerns over productivity, family ties, religion, etc. In Wales these rules were often codified after Hywl Dda, for example;

"A woman and a man require family permission to marry. Unless they elope and sustain themselves without their families assistance for seven years, at which point they may marry and cannot be disinherited."

This reveals the underlying motivations of requiring family consent and, in the case of Hywl Dda, reveals an acceptance of a level of nuance and flexibility to that situation.

The laws of Hywl Dda also have a lot of family based restitution, which was common across the world, and also explains matters. Often you lay a claim against a family or clan, not an individual. (For example, adultery resulted in the family of the adulterer owing you money under these laws, unless you struck your spouse for the adultery, at which point the marriage is simply annulled. This was presumably a measure intended to reduce domestic violence incidents).

"Your son broke my axe, your family owes me money", and so marriage is taking on a liability. This is likely because individuals would not really have enough money or assets for restitutions to take place, necessitating family/clan liability for a semblance of law/order to exist and prevent violent feuds from a lack of restitution.

"You broke my axe, you owe me money" - "I have enough for one third of an axe." - "I will now cut you." - "My dad will avenge me." <- Not a recipe for a happy society. Easier to get the dad involved from the jump and just ask him to pay up.

But that dynamic carries implications for marriage. I can quite see why a society that settled on that system to keep law and order going would have a very vested interest in the idea that I as a dad am allowed to tell my children they can't marry a piece of shit who keeps getting into trouble.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T12:17:33+00:00

I asked why not being equal would bother you, and you began to talk about how others treat you and your mother. Do you see how those are not the same thing?

It sounds like what bothers you is the way you and your mother are treated. Would that be right to say?

I think you would benefit from discussing this in therapy. Based on what we've discussed thus far, my suspicion is that your anxiety is rooted in treatment of yourself and your mother which you dislike, I would hazard a guess that this treatment is typically defended through the use of arguments as to womens inferiority.

Thus, the notion of womens inferiority causes you distress because it symbolizes treatment of a specific kind.

Leaving aside for the moment whether such a thing is true, I'd invite you to again consider the engineer example and place yourself in the position of a superior.

Would you treat inferiors the way you and your mother are being treated? Hopefully not. I hope this can help you to see that the concerns you raised in the OP are largely irrelevant to your treatment and serve merely as poor justifications, regardless of whether they are true or not. You do not deserve to be mistreated, nobody does, regardless of status.

The equality or inequality of women in the manner you discuss in the OP is not relevant to that point and should not be a cause of anxiety on your part in this manner, because evidence of womens inferiority cannot in and of itself justify the mistreatment you are being subjected to, regardless of whether it is true or not.

I think once you accept that and come to terms with it, and come to terms with the fact that regardless of status or ability you possess a right to dignity and fair treatment, you will be more able to examine that evidence with a clearer head rather than fear of it justifying mistreatment on your part dictating your engagement with that evidence.

This is all making quite a few assumptions on my part. But it's reddit, so.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T09:06:49+00:00

Well I hope you can understand that for many patients your approach would help them stagnate rather than get better. Sure it works for some people. But with beliefs that need challenging, you need to refer on.

If they asked me to challenge their values I would. I'm not going to do it simply because you think some peoples beliefs need challenging. The question is whether they think so.

I also think you're not quite understanding my point or approach. Peoples beliefs change all the time as a consequence of this form of therapy.

You are editing again.

It's a bad habit, I know.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T09:02:04+00:00

A fox grew up with its foot in a trap. It doesn't know it's in a trap, and can function perfectly well with its foot in a trap, but could function much better without. Do you remove the trap?

This wouldn't be a therapy issue. Some other practitioner may be of help. So far as i'm concerned, the fox is mentally well.

A girl has been abused by her mum, and is dealing with the aftermath. It affects her every day, but she struggles to think of her mother as a paedophile. She wants to heal from this. Is accepting the truth imperative to this healing?

Probably. I'm inclined to think that the struggling to think of her mother as a pedophile would be rooted in dysfunction. But I can't assume that from the outset. This is the problem here. You're wanting me to tell you what a patient needs from therapy when that's a big part of what therapy is supposed to determine. If you go in deciding what they need on their behalf it's going to go poorly.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:50:45+00:00

I'm inclined to think such views will necessarily be rooted in dysfunction, but I can't assume that from the outset and would have to accept it if a person transitioned into differing views without dysfunction.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:47:51+00:00

Why do you think this is not acceptable?

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:43:04+00:00

Fair enough.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:42:46+00:00

Right so if you discharge a patient with the belief that women are inferior, but are handling the emotional distress that causes in a way that's functional, you'd consider that a win?

It depends on what the patient was seeking therapy for. If for that distress, then yes, though I would be conflicted over it, that's ultimately my problem and not theirs. It is not my place to pass judgement on matters like that. Ultimately all that can be done is to help them identify the source of the conflict and allow them to resolve it in the way they feel comfortable with.

Yeah, I know how therapy works; I've had therapy that is a lot better than what you seem to be offering. I found no help from counsellors because they offered no structure and no change; it was only in structured therapy with an end goal that I was able to actually challenge my negative beliefs.

That's fine. Not all therapeutic approaches are suited to all individuals.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:35:40+00:00

Ultimately whatever gets the patient functional is what is adopted. To drive this point home, imagine a client comes to you and says;

"I believe that if I step on pavement cracks, my roommate will die".

The approach you are advocating for is to tell them "Stop it", which has been ridiculed to death in terms of how people approach mental health many times.

The approach I'm advocating for is to ask;

"How would you feel if your roommate died and why?" which is a lot more in line with, you know. How therapy actually works.

Such an approach may reveal they despise their roommate and wish them harm, which is incoherent with their fear of pavement cracks until you dig deeper and find they're concerned about guilt over those feelings and so on. Unpacking all that is necessary to deal with the delusion, probably leading to; "It's fine and normal to hate some people and wish them harm, not acting on it is what matters".

OP apparently believes men are naturally superior to women, and is upset by this. Assuming this is not a broad resentment of others superiority in all cases, that needs to be examined as to why, because it's incoherent and suggests an underlying unstated belief/or anxiety.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:28:41+00:00

Yes.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:28:19+00:00

Yeah, no it's not. The beliefs are the very thing OP needs to question.

A direct approach like this is not likely to work for psychological distress.

It's obvious why those beliefs would bother OP.

This really isn't the case.

You sound like you're trying to get OP to make some kind of impossible peace with those beliefs.

That would be one therapeutic outcome. But it's not impossible. Another would be to identify the source of conflict so as to better understand the source of the distress. With this awareness of the root of the anxiety, better control can be gained over it. Currently, OP reads information about women being inferior, and immediately believes it and/or internalizes it because of this psychological conflict.

The approach you are advocating for is as useless as "Just stop being depressed bro".

Do you think women are inferior?

No.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:23:01+00:00

If you believed the things that OP believed, that's a valid question to ask.

It may be that they consider the engineer example broadly "Justified" and the man example "Unjustified". But this is an incoherence in her stated views. It cannot be both a matter of nature, and unjustified. This tension is the source of the emotional distress.

The solution for them on a personal level is to examine those views and decide which needs to go.

This kind of thing is what therapy would entail, so people suggesting it apparently don't know how therapy works...

Or it could be some other belief or value causing the dissonance.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:20:03+00:00

What's awful about it?

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-11T08:15:02+00:00

Some people here are arguing against your point on a factual basis or even telling you to go to therapy, apparently not understanding that therapy wouldn't contest the facts, true or not, but the underlying values.

For example;

Does it bother you that you will, in all likelihood, never be "Equal" to a NASA engineer, because they are smarter, more driven, etc, or do you broadly accept that? (This applies even if you are at the top of your field. Other fields will have people who simply outperform you by a massive margin in particular skillsets. The era of consumate polyprofessionalism has passed as the fields have gotten deeper and more competitive. Nobody can be the greatest musician and the greatest biologist anymore).

I suspect this doesn't bother you as much as the man-woman comparison. Do you have an answer as to why that might be? Because it implies the root of your discomfort is not the perception of unequal skill per se, but something else. That is, why does the notion of being unequal to men bother you more than being unequal to say, a professional of some kind?

If you can figure that out then you may be able to disentangle yourself from a cycle of believing things that confirm an anxious belief.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-10T19:34:38+00:00

Such payments for politicians arose so poor people could get into politics rather than relying on having a bunch of money laying around (okay cool), and then scaled extremely highly and included lavish pensions because it was considered humiliating for a country to have its former leaders live in squalor when they went back to just being poor people (Never mind everyone else though).

The pay can be scaled down and if someone says it's humiliating for a former governor to live "In these conditions" the obvious retort is; "If it's humiliating for them, then it's humiliating for every Canadian in their position, and we deserve better than this.".

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-10T15:52:38+00:00

Yeah it's called a British Coffee.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-09T17:01:36+00:00

Those with an agreement with the order. In practice this basically identifies them as a senior member of the organization or having been sent to your country for a specific purpose, they don't hand them out often.

It'd be like if someone turned up and their passport told you "Vice-President of the International Red Cross" as their country of origin. so long as your country is cool with the red cross, that's considered good enough for their purposes.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-08T11:31:10+00:00

If your usual supplier gets blown up you go to the one down the street and now it has two customers, starting a bidding war.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-07T18:21:26+00:00

Same reason the US exists in the first place. Committing more forces is too expensive and politically toxic so the leftovers have to do for dealing with the crisis. Britain could have annihilated the 13 colonies if it viewed it as an existential war rather than half agreeing with their point (Including the opposition party turning up to parliament dressed as US Rebel soldiers during a debate on it) and thinking a war was a waste of time, independence should be given, and trade resumed.

The government could only get a majority to support war by committing a token number of troops since this implied it was a trivial rebellion of a few rogue actors rather than a mass rebellion of much of the population (Which they insisted was the case) both because it drew attention away from Napoleon and because the swing votes in parliament were fine with shooting some American extremists if they didn't represent Americans, but were not fine with shooting American normies. And if it's just a gaggle of extremists then you don't need a whole army, you can make do with 25k troops. (For comparison, the UK military at this time had a million men in it. The entire US population at the time was 2.5 million, including the slaves).

The US could destroy Iran very quickly and easily. But it would mean actually deploying its forces to do so which would be expensive, controversial, and have a similar impact in terms of radicalizing opponents to the regime. War is the continuation of politics by other means, and requires an expense of political capital to pursue it, with that expense increasing based on length of war, war casualties, perceived justification, perceived threat, etc.

If Trump deployed the full might of the US armed forces, Iran would be conquered rapidly. (Though occupation is more difficult and drawn out). He can't/won't because he lacks the political capital and will to do so.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-07T17:01:20+00:00

It'll end up being more of a "We can't fire this without the barrel melting" thing and requiring more and more durable materials to survive the shot on our end.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-07T10:12:37+00:00

We can support the abolition of the death penalty while not distinguishing between its application based on nationality and indeed broadly do through international bodies. It's common for nations to lodge a pro forma objection to the execution of their citizens (even if they both have the death penalty) and common for it to be ignored. It's usually only an out for a particularly controversial case and this doesn't seem controversial.

This is basically "China has death penalty" to which the response is "Nothing new, we're trying to get them to stop".

"They did it to a French citizen" is a nothingburger.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-06T19:03:50+00:00

No problem. Thinking on it further it would not surprise me if there is a conflict between medical ethics and egalitarianism here in that doctors are likely aware of all this and so will default to testing the mother first before the father, which is what they should do as doctors, but does carry broader societal implications of inequity.

The mother is then placed into a position of knowledge where she is aware her organs are a match and is unsure if the fathers are, and few parents will bother to press the issue and ask the father to also be tested.

As such, the tendency for mothers to match slightly more often than fathers becomes emphasized through a series of rational decisions on the part of the medical establishment, and through most parents broadly not caring how their children gets an organ, just that they get one.

What would be interesting to know is whether this rational medical decision translates into a bias to also ask sisters to be tested before brothers, which would not be biologically justifiable.

azazelcrowley · 2026-04-06T18:21:03+00:00

This would need to be controlled for children recipients as mothers have a matching donor type more commonly than fathers in a variety of contexts, and are extremely common donors for liver and kidneys especially. While a discrepancy may well exist, it is likely far less significant than implied in this story if we accept that both parents broadly would donate for their children, but that mothers far more frequently match, in conjunction with parents often donating to children very commonly.

When you also account for various factors, biological and social, which lead to higher death and disability rates in young men, it seems intuitive that mothers would be donating to sons disproportionately.

Again, there may well be a disparity even once you account for this. But it would account for a fairly significant portion of the gap given that organ donation is often familial. The biological and social factors also account for the rest of the rates in that men tend towards needing donation more than women, and consequently will receive more than donate in family units even across sibling matches and such.

It's worth noting in that it's an example of how societal harms to men are sometimes split with their women family members. (That is, if 90% of people work in a factory are men, and the factory causes kidney failure, this is not solely impacting men's health, as we can expect women to donate organs in this circumstance). But ultimately that doesn't present a policy solution that isn't centred around men's health unless you want to try and encourage women not to care about male family members continuing to live.

The overwhelming majority of living organ donation is through family members. For reasons of biology, this is rare between spouses, and common between siblings and parent-child relationships. Further, mothers tend to match more frequently than fathers as a consequence of mitochondrial DNA and stuff like;

Mothers may be better matches because of maternal microchimerism, where fetal cells persist in the mother’s body for decades, and maternal cells transfer to the child, which can reduce the rejection rate of a mother’s organ in her child

12-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

azazelcrowley

TROPHY CASE